


Complete Together

by HammeredAlice



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Disabled Character, M/M, prosthetic!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-18 04:16:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10609089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HammeredAlice/pseuds/HammeredAlice
Summary: When Daiki loses his left arm in a car accident, exactly two inches above the elbow, he calls his life officially over. The prosthetic he’s given at hospital is barely better than a hook and there is no way he’ll ever be able to hold a mug again, much less to throw a ball.Taiga is eight when he’s hit by a drunk idiot in a fast car. He can vaguely remember that he was chasing a ball, nothing more, but that’s probably better. His knee is missing, it doesn’t matter that he can still feel it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! So, the story isn't beta.. whatever you call it, the point is there might be mistakes because English isn't my first language, so I apologize in advance.

  When Daiki loses his left arm in a car accident, exactly two inches above the elbow, he calls his life officially over. The prosthetic he’s given at hospital is barely better than a hook and there is no way he’ll ever be able to hold a mug again, much less to throw a ball. He’s basically done for. Finished. 

  It’s ironic, really. At first, he had it all – he was the ace of the invincible Teiko Junior High basketball team, the prodigy. But life is a bitch, right?!

  When he tries hard enough, Daiki can recall the sickening sound of crushing metals, the wailing of sirens and even the firefighter’s cussing as they tried to cut him out of the wreck that once was dad’s car. His forearm still hurts. He wants to stretch and relieve the cramping, but guess what? He doesn’t have a left fucking forearm to stretch!

  People stare at him. He’s a freak, a poor little fella with a stick instead of an arm. When he walks into the court, people pity him. When he demands to play against them, they think he’s insane, because fuck, no one wants to play basketball against a cripple.

  Taiga is eight when he’s hit by a drunk idiot in a fast car. He can vaguely remember that he was chasing a ball, nothing more, but that’s probably better. His knee is missing, it doesn’t matter that he can still feel it. They move to the States two months later and suddenly life is a whirlwind of doctors and engineers and blueprints of crazy robotic things piling on dad’s desk.

  Almost two years pass. Just when Taiga learns how to move around with the stupid stick-leg fast enough to play a ball, dad rushes him into a place that looks like out of Marvel’s comic book and suddenly he’s fitting something that looks like a piece of Iron Man’s suit. A blonde lady with glasses urges him to walk. At first, Taiga hesitates, but then he does and it’s good, like really good, to the point where he’s confident enough to actually run. Time passes and the blueprints get more complicated, everything is more mechanical and sleek and suddenly Taiga can run faster and further, he can jump and man, jump he does! Finally, he can play on par with Tatsuya, maybe even better.

  Toou is fine, Daiki guesses. The captain is creepy, but they’re desperate enough to let a cripple be part of their team, so he doesn't complain. People still pity him. Everyone – even fucking Kise – plays half-assed once standing against him and it pisses him off, so he takes the ball and shows it down their throats, shows them that even without a fucking hand, the only one who can beat him is still only him.

  Satsuki is sad because of that, but Daiki is beyond the point of caring, seriously. He doesn’t want her carrying his food trays nor does he want her to look after him all the time, he’s not a child! He doesn’t care whether Tetsu has new friends or not, he doesn’t care that Tetsu plays again – at least he likes to think so – but then the little guy with his team of losers actually beats Shutoku and he’s told that the Seirin’s new ace kind of misses a leg.

  There are times when even Taiga has to admit he’s an idiot. Jumping is easy, but it takes its toll. He knows that he managed to fuck up the prosthetic, the ankle joint acts weird, kind of wobbly and it scares the shit out of him. When it comes to day-to-day life, it’s not a that much of a problem – he has a literal bag of legs, 3D printed stuff that is both comfortable and cool – but this bionic titan-covered cutie was specially designed by Alex to allow him to jump and play ball.

  He can’t go back to California right now, not with Seirin making it so far. Their next match is against Toou and man, he heard their ace is a monster. He’s one of Kuroko’s colorful group of friends, even though the little man doesn’t talk about him, the others on the team do. He’s the fastest high school student in Japan, really formidable guy, Koganei muses, if it weren’t for the accident...

  Accident? Taiga wonders. Kuroko is reluctant, but he spills the beans anyway.

  Turns out he really did fuck up the leg. Taiga is at the court, shooting, trying to figure out how the hell is he going to beat the Aomine guy on a wobbly ankle. He tosses the ball, pissed off at himself beyond measure and of course he misses. The ball bounces off and rolls somewhere behind his back, but Taiga is too busy trying to stay on his feet. This is not good. This is not good at all.

  At first, Daiki thinks he must be on the wrong court. The guy in front of him looks perfectly fine, even though he’s obviously trying to shift most of his weight onto the left leg. He jumps, shoots and misses – wait, is this really the guy that beat Midorima’s ass? No, it can't be! Daiki tries to ignore the sting of disappointment. He anticipated more. He still tells the guy to play with him, kind of hating the way he looks at Daiki’s prosthetic arm.

  He can’t believe it. Really, he can’t. It takes a moment before Taiga’s brain kicks in again. What he just saw was.. fuck, he can’t even describe it! It’s a flash of blue and everything is over, his senses can hardly comprehend what just happened. He stares at Aomine, stares at the sickly pink mismatching prosthetic arm that hangs by his side and is absolutely stunned.

  It’s no wonder Toou beats their asses. It’s hard and it’s sad and Taiga absolutely loathes Aomine for making Kuroko cry, but at the same time he's in awe. The team itself is strong, but once Aomine enters the game, it’s a whole new level.

  Daiki hates him. He fucking hates him with all his guts and every fiber of his body, even the fucking piece of plastic attached to the remnant of his arm. Kagami was supposed to go all out against him, but he sucked. Fine! Fine, he was good, Daiki has to admit it – the idiot was jumping around on his shiny metal prosthetic even though he obviously shouldn’t because fuck, he looked as if he were ready to fall on his ass – but once the match was over, he was just like everyone else, staring at Daiki’s arm.

  They lose, but they give it their all. Taiga would be lying if he said that he doesn’t care, of course it bugs him! They have to get better, all of them. If they want to beat Aomine, hell, if they want to beat the rest of Kiseki no Sedai, they have to get much better because if they tried it the way they are now, Aomine would eat them for a breakfast.

  Taiga's body is literally thrumming with anticipation of their next clash. He goes through the preliminaries with the image of Aomine in his mind. The guy is really something. He moves with a cat-like grace even with the damn prosthetic – fuck, Taiga can’t stop thinking about it. The pink nonsense irritates him to no ends, it reminds him of his first leg, the one that had him limping around the house with crutches.

  Is that really the best Aomine’s parents can afford? Taiga’s opinion is probably a little sketchy since money isn’t problem in his family. Dad makes quite a fortune inventing and selling new, improved kinds of prosthetic limbs so all the money invested into Taiga’s missing leg comes back and doubles, allowing the company to grow, to try out new technologies, materials and styles. Alex could probably fashion out an arm that would allow Aomine to play even better. Taiga makes a mental note to ask the blonde engineer as soon as he sees her, but once the plane lands in LA, all that’s on his mind is how much he missed mom and dad.

  The next few days are spent fussing over the dysfunctional ankle. Alex shouts his ear off, but then she actually comes up with something that will make Taiga go even harder, something that could withstand the technique she’s been babbling about since he started playing ball again. However, there is no time to test it so in the end, she ends up boarding the plane with him, anxious to see the fruits of her work in action.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  Imayoshi, the Toou’s captain, is said to be the Satan’s spawn. These rumors might be hard to believe because of the cute little glasses and ever-lasting smile, but the truth is that Imayoshi Shoichi is the devil himself. Seriously. Daiki has the feeling that if he managed to sprinkle the guy with some holy water, he’d start shrieking profanities in Latin. Still, he has to admit that the captain is actually pretty benevolent with him – he doesn’t bat an eye when Daiki ditches yet another practice. It’s not like he ever shows up anyway.

  The Kaijo match goes horribly wrong. They win just fine, it’s even kind of exciting once Kise stops tip-toeing around him, but there is a moment towards the end of the third quarter when Daiki shoots from a really stupid angle and lands on his side. Left side. The soft crack haunts his dreams since then.

  Toou doesn’t have to play in the preliminaries. That’s fine with him, it means more time to laze around, more time to figure out what the fuck is he going to do with the cracked arm. In the end, he tells mom. She smiles and tells him not to worry about it, they’ll come up with something, but Daiki knows they had a bad month and the prosthetics are way damn expensive.

  People are cheering and the booming sound sends shivers down Taiga’s spine. They don’t want to see us, Kiyoshi points out perhaps a little too mercilessly, but it’s okay, there’s no need to sugar-coat anything. Most of them came to see Toou. When the black team enters, the applause is deafening. Taiga’s eyes instinctively search for mismatched chocolate and pink, but Aomine is creeping in the back, the black and red jacket hung protectively over his shoulders, making Taiga sigh because the idiot is trying to hide the prosthetic oh so badly.

  The thrum of blood in his ears is louder than all the crowds. Aomine scores first, going for an alley-oop and then he even complains about Taiga being too slow. Taiga wants to kick his ass so bad, but Aomine is a smudge of black, blue and chocolate, just as fast and just as awesome as the first time they met. Toou believes in him, it’s obvious, but Seirin believes in Taiga just as much and there is no way in hell he’s going to let them down.

  The Zone is hard to describe. The world shrinks until it consists only of him, the ball and eight dumbfounded figures scattered across the court. Aomine stands out, of course, he always does. He’s chasing Taiga, no, wait, Taiga is chasing him, they are racing towards Seirin’s hoop, but Taiga’s not going to allow the bastard to score a single point.

  Laughter bubbles through his chest because shit, this is honestly so good! There’s only one-digit gap between their scores when Kagami fucking Taiga enters the Zone. He steals the ball out of Daiki’s hand and starts something the sports commentators will later call “unbelievable” and “inspiring.” Kagami is the best.

  Seirin wins. Tetsu wins. There’s nothing to be said, but the little guy still fist bumps him and boom, they’re friends again. Honestly, Tetsu’s often too good to be real. He worms back into Daiki’s life, dragging Kagami in tow and before he knows, Daiki watches the two of them win the Winter Cup, hell, he even cheers for them. The disabled power forward quickly becomes Japanese newest sensation.

  As soon as the buzz around the Winter Cup fades away, life falls back into its old tracks. They practice on the weekdays – at least Taiga does, he doesn’t know much about Aomine’s participation charts – and clash on Saturdays while Kuroko and Momoi cheer from the nearest bench, then they all grab a burger at Maji’s. By the end of the second month, Taiga has the aho’s number and they often swap bullshit like puns, memes and even crazy selfies. By the end of the school year, Taiga is content enough to call them friends.

  Aomine really is a huge dork once you get to know him better. Of course, he can still be an annoying bastard and Taiga would love to kick his butt to the moon and back, yet his presence is strangely pleasant. He grins a lot, teases Taiga about almost everything and constantly shows up at Taiga’s place unannounced, but then Taiga does something small and Aomine cracks that genuine blinding smile and all arguments are forgotten.

  The Interhigh is only a month away and Taiga is anxious to clash with the Miracles again. He trains and works out and then trains even more. He’s stronger than he was at the Winter Cup, he’s sure of it. At the same time, Aomine kind of... slows down?! He grows wary of every move, as if he would fall apart if the ball even grazed his left side.

  Taiga doesn’t fail to notice the crack spreading down Aomine’s prosthetic arm. Maybe it’s the sudden closeness, the fact that they are friends – they are, Taiga is sure of it by now – but it irks him more than before. Aomine doesn’t smile anymore and he blames the goddamn thing for everything, shit, Taiga blames even himself. He should’ve told Alex when she was still in Japan, but back then he and Aomine were just rivals and Taiga was sure the Touou’s ace wouldn’t appreciate him sticking his nose into his things. Now he regrets it.

  It happens after one of their Saturday games. Seeing other people’s stumps shouldn’t be so weird, he should be used to it by now since his own fucking arm has been like that for two years. It’s just, fuck, it feels so personal that the sheer fact that Kagami just took off his goddamn leg in front of him makes Daiki nervous.  He has no right to see this! Still, he can’t help it. Curiosity takes over and he takes a quick peek. Kagami misses a knee, but not much more. How? Daiki wonders once the other teen disappears in the bathroom. He’s never really asked the Seirin what happened.

  When Kagami wobbles out of shower twenty minutes later dressed in nothing but boxers, Daiki actually loses his train of thoughts because fuck, the rest of Kagami is pretty much perfect. He’s toned and flushed and for a fleeting second, Daiki understands all the girls fawning over him. That is, until the idiot asks him about his arm. He points one long finger at the piece of duct tape covering the crack and asks Daiki why doesn’t he get a new one.

  It sounds utterly wrong. Aomine curses, calls him a spoiled bastard and almost storms out of the apartment if it weren’t for Taiga grabbing the stupid plastic arm and tugging him back. He begs him to sit the fuck down and listen.

  Daiki gets like half of the shit that leaves the red idiot’s mouth. He’s trying, he swears he’s trying so hard, but Kagami goes from “shit, I didn’t mean to offend you, idiot” to “come to LA with me” in less than two seconds and Daiki’s brain just calls it quits.

  Taiga quickly convinces his dad that fashioning out an arm for Aomine will be a great advertisement – “Just imagine what could he do with a bionic arm! Japanese national team already said they’d scoot him were he old enough! He could help the company expand overseas!" – and once Aomine’s parents hesitantly accept the offer, things move rather quickly.

  They are both insane, Daiki realizes when he boards the plane to Los Angeles. He’s never been in a plane before so he’s naturally scared shitless. Kagami makes few jokes, but then he starts muttering embarrassing stories about his family and the crazy engineer slash mentor they’re going to meet and Daiki slowly relaxes. Kagami has a nice voice, it’s deep and soothing and Daiki would be alright just listening to him babbling shit for the whole ten hours, even though the realization sort of scares him.

  Kagami dozes off after few hours. Daiki envies him. He’d love to sleep, but sleep is probably the last thing on his mind right now, so he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of raindrops drumming against the metal, combined with Kagami’s soft snores. They must be flying through some storm. Daiki wonders who’s shaking more – him or the plane? – and he’d rather be anywhere but here. He’s trapped between Kagami’s warmth and the cold metal of plane, too scared to look out of the tiny circular window. When the lightning splits the sky close to the plane’s wing, he’s so startled he accidentally grabs Kagami’s forearm. Of course, the redhead barely stirs up. He hums something in that stupid English of his, covers Daiki’s palm with his own and goes back to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, it's getting longer than I expected. Hope you like it :)


	3. Chapter 3

  Aomine’s face is priceless. Taiga considers snapping a photo of him, well, he actually does so, once they’re both loaded in the back of dad’s SUV. He looks like a kid seeing a Christmas tree for the first time, all starry-eyed and awed. His mouth is slightly open and for some strange reason Taiga can’t tear his gaze away from the soft curve of his lips. What the fuck is wrong with him?!

  Mom is all jittery, obviously excited because she finally meets a friend of his that isn’t Tatsuya. She hurls them both straight to the dining room where a pile of steaming food is already awaiting them and immediately starts bombarding Aomine with questions about their trip and his first impression of LA. Taiga feels sorry for the bluenette. He’s just opening his mouth to tell her to stop interrogating him when dad’s head appears in the door frame. He looks a little uneasy – the heating in the guest room is broken, he hisses in English, making mom gasp. Aomine probably can’t understand a thing since his English is as poor as his social skills.

  Kagami’s parents are a strange pair. His dad is tall, broad and mostly silent, but his mom is a force of nature. Kagami got most of her features from her, Daiki realizes, but thank god, she lacks the forked eyebrows. Her only flaw is that she thinks Daiki can eat the same amount of food as her son.

  Once the dinner is over, however, he is unsure of what to do. Kagami is helping his mom with dishes, but once Daiki tries to lend a hand, the petite lady shoos him away. Without Kagami around, he feels awkward, so he sticks to his side until the redhead throws a towel on his head and shows him the way to the shower. The sound of water doesn’t tune out the voices coming from the hallway – they’re talking in English, hushed and sort of urgent – Daiki can hear Kagami’s voice cut in clean, probably making some decision.

  Kagami’s room is downstairs which is convenient since Daiki can hardly imagine him climbing the stairs with the crutches. The redhead has this habit, he noticed – once he climbs out of the shower, he doesn’t put on his prosthetic and when he does, it’s the lightweight printed one. It’s milky white, far less threatening than the titan one Kagami plays basketball with. Also, it’s back in Tokyo, so when Daiki spots the redhead hopping into the room with the wobbly-looking crutches, he rushes to help him. They’re friends after all.

  He's like Edward Elric, Aomine grins once Alex helps him fasten the prototype on, but his little joke doesn’t ring a bell with Taiga. Anyway, he’s not in the mood for a Japanese pop culture quiz. The blue idiot has been staring at Alex’s breasts the whole time and it just pisses Taiga off, he can’t help himself. The arm itself is looking mighty good. It’s covered in thin plates of titan, with wires and all the things he doesn’t understand at all hidden underneath. Alex seriously outdid herself with this one, although Taiga has seen only the legs she crafted out so he can’t really tell.

  The arm can’t be too heavy, see, the hot shot here is all about speed, so we have to come up with something that wouldn’t drag him down too much, the blonde hottie engineer explains. The technology is nothing new, she says, but Daiki already feels like a character in a mecha anime. He’s supposed to control the joints by moving the muscles in his stump – that he’ll have to figure out yet. They could help him to a mind controlled bionic arm, but that would require a set of wires put into his chest and neck and that’s something Daiki refuses to even think about.

  Aomine makes a choked sound once Alex explains where the wires would go. It suits him, Taiga decides. They have nine more days in LA. On mornings, they go with dad to the lab. Alex makes Aomine put on the arm and asks him to try all kinds of movements, then fixes the bugs. The idiot isn’t stripping her with his eyes anymore, no, instead he’s struggling to grasp the techniques, constantly cussing, biting his lips and ignoring Taiga’s words of advice.

  Alex is great. She lends him a hand, quite literally – an older model that works on the same muscle movement basis – so he can start learning how to control it. Since that moment, Aomine’s constantly toying with it. Taiga had never seen him so concentrated and if he didn’t know better, he’d say he slipped into the zone.

  It’s the fifth day and Taiga is helping mom with the dishes again when he hears a loud whoop coming from the living room. The next second Aomine is in the kitchen, basically all over the place, demanding him to do the finger guns. Okay, Taiga does it without much thinking. The bluenette is returning the gesture with manic laughter and for a fleeting moment Taiga thinks he’s crazy because this makes zero sense, at least until he notices that Aomine is using his left, too. He wiggles the robotic fingers at Taiga and boom, they’re both laughing like idiots. When Aomine gives him the – metal – middle finger that evening, he’s not even angry.

  It’s awesome. So fucking awesome to the point he wants to hug Kagami because Jesus fucking Christ he can move his fingers! Hold things! Daiki doubts anyone has ever been happier because they were able to hold the fucking cutlery. He makes Taiga record a video and sends it to mom. Of course, it ends up with her crying into the phone. Now guess what? The best part is that this isn’t even the real thing! The arm he’s wearing now is like five years old, at least he thinks the engineer said so, and Daiki can only imagine how great will be the new one.

  There’s a court near Kagami’s house. When they go out to play their usual one-on-one, Daiki tries to use the prosthetic arm too. The reaction is slower than of a normal hand, of course it is, but he guesses that once he learns how to control it properly and adjusts all the movements, he’ll be able to play like he used to before the accident. As great as it is, the thought makes Daiki strangely sad. People don’t want to play against him now simply because he’s a cripple. Back at Teiko, people refused to play against him because he was too good. So, what if he surpasses them all again? What if Kagami won’t want to play against him anymore? He doesn’t want that.

  It’s the big day and Taiga can’t wait to see Aomine’s face once he puts on the new arm. Everyone is sort of giddy – dad, mom, even Alex – but the bluenette stays mostly silent. He has the pink prosthetic back on and carries the borrowed one in a bag with him. Taiga tels him like five times that he can put it on until they get to the lab, but Aomine refuses and mumbles something about his stump hurting. Maybe the metal arm is too heavy for him, Taiga wonders. He might try to persuade Alex to print out something more lightweight for him, something more comfortable Aomine could wear every day, just like he does.

  Alex notices, too. She reassures Aomine that the new arm is a big deal lighter and tells him to skype her if he had any problems with it or wanted her to explain something again. Aomine smiles at her, but it’s not a sincere smile, Taiga can tell. The only moment he smiles for real is when Taiga’s mom crushes him in a bone-breaking hug at the airport. Maybe he’s just tired, after all, it’s been rough ten days for him or maybe he already misses his family. Taiga doesn’t pry. When Aomine curls into the plane seat next to him, the hated pink prosthetic cradled against his chest, he offers his hoodie as a pillow, opting for a small comfort. When the bluenette gives it back to him, they’re already back at Tokyo.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this was the first half, I'll try to post the second one as soon as possible. Also sorry for all the medical errors, this is just an idea I wanted to spill here, so.. thanks for reading it :)


End file.
